Today, brave teenagers and students will protest Abercrombie & Fitch's Fifth Avenue flagship for pumping that hideous stench into all of its stores, and transforming them into retail hellscapes. They contend that the disgusting cologne is an environmental hazard. [StyleList]

Designers and their Halloween costumes news and information! "My favorite costume was the year I went as a bodega," says Vena Cava's Lisa Mayock. "This year? Still working it out, but I think Jeff Halmos and I are going to be Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Bros." Co-designer Sophie Buhai: "One year I was 'pregnant,' and I just drank and smoked with a very real-looking stomach. It was very offensive and I don't know if people really thought I was in costume. But I thought it was funny! This year I want to be Laurie Anderson and am looking for a good white suit and electric violin." Pregnant! That is disgusting and we love it. [T]

Heidi Klum, whose costumes are often elaborate and frightening, is going as some kind of Transformers-inspired robot queen this year. [Catwalk Queen]

In case you thought Snooki's pickle costume might be awesome, here is the good word: It will be lame. It's not even a pickle costume! It's a short, green dress that she will wear while holding "a light-up sceptre in the shape of a pickle." [WWD]

Olivier Theyskens says he took the gig as creative director of Theory because "working on what people wear every day" is interesting. "It is an amazing opportunity to think about everyday life. It is not something expected from an edgy designer, but to me it is interesting." [On The Runway]

Mariah Carey is doing a shoe line for the Home Shopping Network, and it includes lots of fake fur and high heels. Carey says her feet are "naturally made" for wearing heels. "When I don't have a platform, we could have a traumatic moment, like a semi-spill on stage, which nobody wants. A platform shoe grounds you a little more. I try to make my designs more practical as well as pretty. One of the things I thought about was how I could do affordable, really nice, comfortable shoes that are still flattering to the leg." [WWD]

Every time we are about ready to throw the Times style section across the room for running yet another one-source trend piece quoting Robert Thompson, they go and publish a fascinating tidbit about something totally mundane, like Pendleton blankets, or, today, wingtips: "As bankerly and stylish as wingtips may look today, their history is another story. They came into fashion in the 1910s, when the low-sided oxford — what is now considered a basic dress shoe — arrived in the United States, part of a trend for shoes with a leisure-class feel. Like golf shoes, or the white bucks designed for tennis, they were comfortable. Their acceptance was accelerated by soldiers coming home from World War I, who preferred the easy-to-wear oxfords they had discovered in England to the high-laced, narrow footwear that had been the norm in the United States. Even in England, brogues had been an import. They originated in Ireland and Scotland, rough shoes made of double thicknesses of leather to withstand a trudge through the countryside. The perforations went clear through the leather to let water drain, should the wearer have to wade through a stream or one of those famous bogs. They were more or less the Crocs of the 18th century." [NYTimes]

Luxury conglomerate PPR, which owns Gucci and Alexander McQueen, among other brands, says its sales rose 17% year-on-year during the quarter just ended. What recession? [NYPost]

Sephora, which recently opened its first store in Brazil, aims to open its first two stores in Mexico City by late 2011. [WWD]